Zadarious Dorsey was 18, a senior at Newnan High School who planned to join the Navy after graduation, his family says. On Oct. 3, a Newnan, Georgia, police officer shot him six times. On Thursday, his family put the city on notice that it intends to seek $75 million.
Attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels sent the city a notice of intent to sue alleging an unlawful pursuit and excessive force. It is the formal step before a lawsuit, not the lawsuit itself. “If that’s not excessive use of force, I don’t know what is,” Crump said. Dorsey’s family says he was not suspected of a crime and was not the subject of a traffic stop.
Here is what the district attorney’s office has laid out. An unmarked police car followed a white car to Cliff Circle around 1 a.m. The officer, in a vest marked “POLICE,” spoke to Dorsey alone, calling him “Dae Dae,” and chased him on foot. A Taser was fired. At 1:13:45 a.m., the officer shouted “drop the gun.” At 1:13:46, he fired six shots. Two seconds later, the footage records Dorsey saying, “I dropped it yo.”
The autopsy found six wounds: one to the right chest that exited his back, one to the hip and four to the legs. District Attorney Herb Cranford says the chest wound is consistent with the first shot.
The officer told the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that Dorsey pulled a handgun from his waistband and ignored orders to drop it. Investigators recovered a stolen Canik 9mm pistol 42 feet from where Dorsey fell, and testing found his DNA on it. The family’s lawyers say the distance proves he had thrown it away and was unarmed when he was shot.
Both accounts are on the record, and the body camera frames released so far do not settle which is true. That is the fact the DA’s own review has to answer. Cranford has said the question is whether the officer “reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to protect his life,” not whether the stop was lawful. So whatever led to the chase, however it began, drops out of the DA’s review. Dorsey’s DNA on a gun does not tell a prosecutor whether he was holding it at 1:13:46.
The officer has not been publicly named, and it is unclear whether he is on leave. No one has been charged. The city has made no public response to the claim. The family agreed to let the DA release footage only up to the shots, with the moments after left out, and viewed the evidence as protesters stood outside the police department. His aunt, Angela Brown, said the body camera footage did not change her view of the shooting.
Zadarious Dorsey is dead, and the officer who shot him is still unnamed. The GBI has not finished its investigation, and Cranford has not said when he will decide whether to charge. Newnan should name the officer, take him off the street until that decision is made, and release the full timeline. The public is owed that before it is asked to take the officer’s word.
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